This publicity image released by NBC shows Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in a scene from the TV series, "Hannibal."
Photo: Associated Press

This publicity image released by NBC shows Mads Mikkelsen as Dr....

Food and its preparation plays a big part in the life of psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and by extension, his FBI cohorts, who've yet to unmask him for what he really is. NBC
Photo: NBC, Robert Trachtenberg/NBC

Food and its preparation plays a big part in the life of...

Hugh Dancy as special agent Will Graham tries to make sense of his demonic visions involving Hannibal as he sits in jail, wrongly accused of serial killings.
Photo: NBC, Brooke Palmer/NBC

SAN ANTONIO — My living room has turned into a dark and dreaded place.

I can't seem to shake the anxiety that was spawned there recently by my previewing of three powerful TV series that will come into your homes this week.

Taut Russian spy drama “The Americans” returns with a particularly harrowing season two opener that includes a chilling family bloodbath.

The second season of the intriguing “Hannibal” premieres with a gruesome, albeit beautifully choreographed, knife fight between the title's serial killer/psychiatrist (Mads Mikkelsen) and FBI Special Agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne). That prefiguring of what's to come took 20 hours to shoot and resulted in, according to Mikkelsen, “120 bruises.”

Then there's a new thriller, “The Red Road,” starring Martin Henderson as a small-town lawman who tries to keep peace and protect his family while forming an uneasy alliance with a dangerous outlaw (Jason Momoa, aka Khal Drogo of “Game of Thrones”). The atmospheric drama brings its own share of the creeps.

Details:

“The Red Road” (8 p.m. Thursday, Sundance): Sundance's second scripted original paints a sinister portrait of two clashing worlds: a small town outside of New York City that seems to be dominated by surly white residents, and the nearby mountains where a federally unrecognized American Indian tribe struggles — sometimes by criminal means — to not only survive but thrive.

At the conflict's heart is a secret pact made between two very different men: Sheriff Harold Jensen (Henderson) and Phillip Kopus (the sharp-browed Momoa, who seems to live and breathe menace). Family man Jensen finds himself on the wrong side of the law when he turns a blind eye to the crimes of Kopus and his cohort to protect his mentally shaky wife (Julianne Nicholson) from being charged with a hit-and-run.

Thrown into the six-episode mix are youths in peril, a treacherous landscape and all kinds of ugly encounters between Kopus and his blood father (played with wicked intensity by Tom Sizemore), who constantly berates his son in front of anyone who'll listen.

“The Americans” (9 p.m. Wednesday, FX): The arranged marriage of undercover KGB spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) initially seems to be heating up nicely after the former's return home from her on-the-job injury.

However, the Reagan-era Cold War is getting chillier by the moment and all kinds of ominous undercurrents are hitting the couple. Topping the list is a mission that goes horrifically wrong and leaves the Jennings in fear not only for their own safety but for that of their kids.

Meanwhile, teen daughter Paige is becoming more and more suspicious during her parents' regular disappear-ances. And next-door neighbor, FBI agent Stan (Noah Emmerich), falls more deeply for the beautiful Russian agent who has begun to play him.

Also: The KGB handler (Margo Martindale) despised by Elizabeth returns in a future episode to complicate matters even further.

Adding a little fun to the proceedings are a variety of pop culture reminders of the early '80s, including movie scenes of Meryl Streep in “The French Lieutenant's Woman” and a discussion of famed “love doctor” Leo Buscaglia.

“Hannibal” (9 p.m. Friday, NBC): The criminal procedural that's as grotesque and demented as it is poetically and visually satisfying returns with a continuation of the complicated central relationship between Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), the sensitive FBI agent who empathizes with everyone, even the killers he stalks, and the clandestinely evil psychiatrist who also relishes killing, cooking and eating, Hannibal Lecter.

As he sits in jail, accused of crimes he didn't commit, Will battles feelings of instability, fear that he may indeed be a murderer and the ever-growing belief that his friend and helpmate, Hannibal, is the actual perpetrator.

Meanwhile, Will's skills as an investigator are called upon even behind bars when a colleague needs help in solving an especially heinous string of murders.

Jeanne Jakle's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in mySA, and she blogs at Jakle's Jacuzzi on mySA.com. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.